Montauk: Miami of the North

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This view of Montauk, looking west, was taken around 1930 by commercial photographer Charles Duprez. At the time, the community at the far tip of Long Island was in the midst of development fever, which began in 1926 with the arrival of Carl Graham Fisher, an entrepreneur who had created Miami out of mangrove swamps and woods in the early 1920s. Fisher envisioned Montauk as the ``Miami of the North'' and built the seven-story office tower (top photo) to serve as his headquarters. But the stock market crash of 1929 hit Fisher hard, and he went bankrupt in 1932.

The roadway at the left of the photograph is Montauk Highway. The Tudor-style buildings to the south of the roadway housed stores and the Montauk Tavern; across the roadway was White's Pharmacy, a movie theater and a hardware store. Between those stores and the office building is the Montauk Security Building.

Dick White, a local historian, recalls that during World War II, the Fisher building was used as a BOQ or bachelor officers quarters. The former office building, which dominates the view in a recent photograph, below, was converted into condominiums in the 1970s.